Twenty-Nine
“Off to the coal mine,” Alicia said, slipping on a light jacket not long after Gage had left Holden’s house.
“Huh?” said Holden.
“My job? You remember I have a job?”
“Oh, right, the thing at the thing.”
“Yeah, the thing at the thing,” she said. “My weekend gig at FreshCo?” One of Yorkton Hill’s discount grocery stores. Alicia
worked Saturday and Sunday afternoon shifts as a cashier. The store was shifting to self-checkout, but a lot of the older
customers refused to use it so they kept one or two checkout lanes open on weekends, when they were busiest.
Holden asked. “When’re you done?”
“Seven. I don’t know if I’m coming back here or going home. Might depend on whether you can figure out how to wash your sheets.”
“I’ve been studying.”
“I’ll text you.”
Thinking of something else, he asked, “How’d you think Gage was?”
“I don’t know. Okay, I guess.”
Holden shook his head worriedly. “He’s a good kid.”
“Sure.”
“Hope he gets through this okay. Big traumatic stuff that happens to you when you’re young, it can stay with you.”
Alicia smiled. “You being the textbook case.”
“He was quiet.”
“Maybe he’s just a quiet kid. Look, I gotta go.”
“Want me to drive you?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
She was out the door. She already had her phone out, having ordered an Uber to take her to work. Her ride was five minutes
out, if the app was to be believed. A gray Honda Civic, with a plate that began BBA.
What Gage was, she thought to herself, was not quiet, but a little too inquisitive. Asking her how her aunt died. How she
was murdered, whether they caught the guys who did it. For the sake of consistency, she gave him the same story she’d given
Holden, that she was killed in a bank holdup that went horribly wrong. Even gave Gage the same name she’d given Holden. Mary
Zane, though her aunt’s name had been Evelyn Corby.
Alicia hoped she’d told Gage enough to satisfy his curiosity, because if he went online, searching for more details, he wasn’t
going to find much. At least Holden hadn’t done that. He accepted her story as told. But Gage struck her as sharper than Holden.
There was her ride. A gray Civic. It slowed to a stop outside Holden’s house. She opened the back door on the passenger side
and hopped in.
“How you doin’ today?” the driver, a young Hispanic man, asked.
“Fine,” Alicia said, in a tone that did not encourage further conversation.
She wondered whether she would go back to Holden’s place after work, even if he did do laundry. She could use a break. It
was hard pretending. Okay, she wasn’t totally putting on an act. She did like the guy. He was a sad case, for sure, but then
again, wasn’t she? A pair like them, it only made sense they would meet in rehab. Alicia didn’t like to think of it as a contest,
but she believed she was doing better than Holden at getting her life back on track. She hadn’t used in a long time. Some
booze, a little weed now and then, but she was off all the other stuff. And she believed she could keep it that way, because
things were different now.
Alicia had a purpose.
For the first time in more than twenty-five years, she had a chance to get even.
At first, she thought it had been a hell of a coincidence that she and Holden ended up in the same group, a bunch of recovering addicts trying to come to terms with why their lives were so fucked-up.
But then she thought it wasn’t so crazy that they would end up crossing paths.
They were both products of tragedy, both had turned to drugs or alcohol to deal with the pain, and both had ended up in treatment. Both lived in the same town.
But still, fate had played a role.
At Sharnwood, they were going around the circle, each coming forward with their stories. One guy, he’d been in a car accident
that was his fault. His girlfriend had died. Drank to forget. There was a woman who’d lost her four-year-old to cancer. Couldn’t
get past it. Not everyone had as sorry a tale to tell. “I just like it,” said one guy about why he drank. Another, addicted
to crack, couldn’t explain the need, except to say, “It gets me through the day.”
When they got to Alicia, she wasn’t sure how much she wanted to talk about it. But she disclosed that her parents both died
when she was in her teens. From there she went to live with her aunt, and not long after that, her brother died. And the real
capper? Her aunt was murdered.
“Holy shit,” said several in the circle.
Including Holden, who said, “Oh man, that one kind of gets to me, but in a different way.”
Rather than push Alicia to provide more details, Ben, the group leader, asked Holden to explain what he meant by different.
Holden didn’t speak for several seconds. “I’ve never really talked about this,” he said. “Not for years. In the beginning,
I wanted to, but was scared to, because . . .” His voice started to break. He sniffed a couple of times. “Sorry.”
Ben said, “Take your time.”
“I couldn’t talk about it because . . . I wanted to be loved. And if I told, I wouldn’t be anymore.”
All eyes on Holden.
“So as the years went on, I tried to forget about it, forget it ever happened, and I guess that’s why I’m so fucked-up. I’ve pushed all this shit so far down, it’s taken all the energy I’ve got to keep it there.”
Ben went back to his earlier question. “What did you mean by different?”
Holden took another moment, then said, “Alicia’s life got messed up because of a murder, and mine got messed up because I
was keeping quiet about one.” He paused. “I don’t think I can really say more than that.”
“Nothing leaves this room,” Ben said.
Holden cast his eye around the circle. “Yeah, well, I don’t know. Everybody here seems okay, but I don’t think I want to get
too specific? I can say this much. I was just a kid, and the person who did it, it was . . . it was somebody really close.”
“When did this happen?” Ben asked.
“Like I said, I was just a kid. It was nineteen ninety-nine.”
This was the first time Alicia thought, What?
“I saw something I shouldn’t have seen. I was in bed and I heard a shot.”
Shot, Alicia thought.
“I got out of bed and went to the window, because it sounded like the shot was in our backyard. The houses were kind of spaced
out, so if anybody else heard it, they probably didn’t think much about it. So I looked out and I saw her body on the ground.”
Her, Alicia thought.
“Oh my god,” Ben said.
“I could see her, she was face down and she wasn’t moving.”
Face down, Alicia thought. Like she’d been shot in the back.
One of the other men in the group had a question. “Is this, like, still unsolved? Was anybody ever arrested for what happened?”
Holden shook his head.
Unsolved, Alicia thought.
There were more questions, but Holden held up his palms, said he couldn’t really say much more, except to add, “You figure, there are some people who will love you no matter what. You could kill the president, and they’d say, yeah, you probably shouldn’t have done that, but hey, we still love you.
When you find out they really could stop loving you, that’s not something you forget. ”
The group took a break.
When they came back, Ben went back to Alicia.
“I feel we cut you off back there, when you were telling us about your aunt, and we kind of veered off to hear what Holden
had to say. But I want to get back to you. Tell us about your aunt. What happened to her?”
During the break, Alicia kept thinking, Is it possible?
The few details Holden had provided matched up. The murder he’d witnessed had been of a woman. Most likely shot in the back.
It had happened the same year. It had never been solved.
How many unsolved murders did Yorkton Hill have from that year? Assuming, of course, the incident Holden had talked about
was local. He hadn’t been very clear on that.
Alicia needed to know more. And she didn’t want to tip her hand.
So when Ben asked whether she wanted to continue her story, she said, “I’m good.”
“You sure?” he asked.
“Maybe next time,” she said.
After the session, she sidled up to Holden at the coffee stand.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” he said.
“What you were saying, that sounded pretty heavy.”
“Yeah, well, right back atcha,” he said. “Losing your aunt, that’s awful.”
“I couldn’t say anything else. It hurts to talk about.”
“No shit.”
“You wanna sit down?”
He said sure. There was a common area at Sharnwood where residents and staff could hang. Alicia and Holden found two cushy
chairs across from each other and sat down with their paper cups of coffee.
“I shoulda gotten a cookie,” Holden said.
“Hold this,” she said, handing him her coffee as she ran back to the table. She returned with two chocolate chip cookies for him and two for her.
“You a first-timer?” she asked.
“I wish. Been here so much I should have my mail sent here.”
She laughed. “First for me. Costs a lot, but I qualified for some special program that would cover it, at least this once.”
“My parents keep throwing money at these people, thinking one time it’ll work.” He shrugged. “Maybe one of these times they’ll
get lucky and I’ll come out as this big success story.” He laughed. “As if.”
More small talk. Where they were from, schools they’d attended. Finally, Alicia asked, “Maybe you don’t want to talk about
it, but man, what you’ve been holding in all this time, that’s nuts. So who is it who wouldn’t love you anymore if you talked?”
Holden looked down, shook his head.
“I’m sorry,” Alicia said, reaching out and putting her hand on his knee. “I’ve got no business asking.” A pause, and then,
“It’s just, sometimes it helps to talk about these things.”
“You didn’t tell your whole story either,” he said.
She took her hand off his knee. “You’re right. Point taken. Okay, so this is what happened.”
Alicia had always been imaginative. Back in high school, she’d taken a creative writing class. She’d loved to write short
stories. Ideas just flew into her head. There was a time when she thought that was what she’d like to be: a writer. But after
the death of her parents and her brother, and then her aunt, she’d lost any enthusiasm she might have had in that direction.
Anything she might want to write about was too painful.
Didn’t mean she couldn’t spin a good tale when she had to. She was a good liar. After all, isn’t that what writers are?
“A bank robbery,” she said. “My aunt—Mary was her name—was shot and killed in a bank robbery.”
“God, that’s awful,” Holden said. “And you were living with her at the time?”
She nodded. “I was out on my own after that.”
Alicia was ready with more details. She could embellish if necessary. But Holden didn’t ask.
“Okay, over to you,” she said.
Holden ate his first cookie.
“I don’t know . . .”
Alicia didn’t push. Waited.
Holden took in some air, let out a very long breath. “Oh boy.”
“Take your time.”
“It was my mom.”
Didn’t see that coming, Alicia thought.
“Your mom? You saw your mom kill someone?”
Holden put his index finger to his lips and looked around in case anyone was listening. “Yeah,” he said.
“Why? What happened? Who did she kill?”
Holden was close to hyperventilating.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. Take it slow,” she said.
“I swear, I’ve never talked about this.”
“Maybe you need to. After all this time.”
He took a few more breaths to calm himself and said, “This woman.”
“What woman?”
Whoa, Alicia thought. Don’t push too hard. Let him take his time.
“I didn’t know for a while. But you start putting the pieces together over time, right? It was this woman my dad worked with.
They both worked for the same company.”
“What company was that?”
“Did you see all that stuff in the news a few years ago? About this drug company that was knowingly getting people addicted
to painkillers?”
She felt her heart starting to beat more quickly. “Maybe . . .”
“Wiffel-Smith,” Holden said.
In her head, Alicia heard: DING DING DING DING DING!
“Yeah, I think so,” she said.
She could barely breathe.
“She was going to expose the company or something like that, and my mother didn’t want that to happen.”
“Wow. That’s wild. Did you ever find out the woman’s name?”
Like she even needed it at this point.
Holden shrugged. “I knew it once but I’m not sure I remember it. A lot of this stuff, I find I try to block it out. But I
can’t.”
She nodded sympathetically. “What’s your mother’s name?”
“Catherine.”
“Catherine,” she repeated. “I don’t know how you begin to deal with something like that.”
“She said if I ever told, that it would destroy the family and she wouldn’t love me anymore.”
“Harsh.” Alicia had a sip of her coffee, ate her cookie. “That’s really fucking harsh. But you’re not worried about that now?
I mean, is she still alive, your mom?”
“Oh yeah.”
Alicia nodded. “Huh. You’re not worried she’ll deliver on her threat now?”
“Well, first of all, she doesn’t have to know I’ve told you. And second, I don’t know if I give a fuck anymore. If she could
say something like that, did she even love me in the first place?”
“There you go.”
“Look, maybe I was messed up from the start, and it wouldn’t have mattered what happened that night. But what if I could have
been normal, and she took away my chance? And the more I think about it, the more I wonder, what do I care whether she loves
me or not? Some days, I think, if she died, I wouldn’t shed a tear. Not only that, I’d feel like I’d been released, you know?
Like I’d have my freedom. That I wouldn’t have to worry about it one more fucking day.”
“I hear you,” she said. “I do.” She reached out and touched his face gently with the tips of her fingers. “You’re a good person.
You didn’t deserve this. You don’t deserve to have this held over you. I’m honestly really the first person you’ve ever told?”
He hesitated before answering. “I kinda told one other person. Not as much as I told you now, but nibbling around the edges.”
“Who’s that?”
“My nephew,” he said. “Gage.”
“Gage.”
Holden nodded.
“When we get out, when they’ve cured us,” and at that, she grinned and rolled her eyes, “and they send us back out into the
world, I’d like to keep in touch.”
“Yeah, that’d be nice.”
“We could hang out.”
“Sure.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “Let’s.”
As Alicia smiled, she was already thinking about what she would do with this new information. How she could get her revenge
on one Catherine Chartwell.
She could go to the police with what she knew.
But where was the fun in that?